Random Tidbits

--I was listening to Shad, some rapper from Canada, today in the car. His song Rose Garden had an interesting line--"Can't cower when the rain falls/And it falls whether you're Gandhi or you're Adolf". I found this to be fairly interesting. Rap Genius tells me it means that life treats good and bad people the same. Yet if we were looking at it from a Christian spirituality perspective, we can see rain as a metaphor for grace (as Christians like to do) and learn the lesson that our God showers us with grace whether we're as good as Gandhi or as bad as Hitler. Don't spin this the wrong way. I don't need to go into detail on the horrors of Adolf Hitler. But his actions don't disprove the fact that Jesus died for everyone who walked or will walk on this earth. He loves and has loved everybody--yes, that includes Hitler. Now that's some big and unconditional love. I dunno--the verses just enabled me to really feel the magnitude of the big guy upstairs today.

--I watched the presidential debate last night. I thought I'd be able to say at the end of this whole thing that I would get by without watching one. I blame it on my roommate Kevin. He turned it on. Anyway I didn't learn much. If you were following my live tweets last night (@tycoondog, and I apologize if you were) you'll know that I wasn't too enthusiastic about either candidate. I seriously hope people don't base their votes off of those things. Especially the Town Hall debate. What garbage.

--It was funny because I got my absentee ballot today in the mail asking me to vote for a President and a mosquito control head honcho in North Naples. I might seem at times apathetic towards politics (I try not to be), but I do encourage everyone to find out a way to get out a vote (my way was my mother remembering to get an absentee ballot sent to me--thanks Mom!). I don't know who I'm going to vote for yet, but I was pleased to see that you're allowed to write in a name. I think I'm going to vote for Dan Marino. If God's Right Arm can save the Miami Dolphins than he can save America's economy, I think.

--Otherwise there's not much else going on around campus lately, besides for homecoming. So I reiterate: not much going on. It's around midterm time so people are actually being somewhat quiet and using the Richter Library. Midterms and finals are the only times of the year that the Richter has inhabitants. And I really do mean inhabitants. People sleep there. I think those people are mostly pre-med.

I wish I could report more, but if I had to add commentary to midterm weeks I'd say this--it all makes me roll my eyes. I think exam weeks bring out people's main purpose for being in college--grades. Basically  people cram gratuitous amounts of information they'll forget after a couple of nights binge drinking  and intersperse preparations for homecoming events that they think will look good on their resumes. Talk about spending the entirety of your week over things that don't matter.

I'm not going to go on about how people worship their grades. It's not worth it. Just wanna say that while I'm going over hundreds of pages of books and dozens of pages or notes I've got other stuff in my life that I'm taking taking care of and that's much more important. And I'm not saying that in an elitist way whatsoever. I'm saying that because I care about things in my life that matter more than things that only matter for a little bit (or a little bit). While you feel the drudgery of midterms and eventually finals find something else that you can dedicate your time to during those weeks that have an impact on people and "do love". You'll enjoy the process so much more.

So that's all for my tidbits. It's #BeatFSU week so I'm very pumped about that. If we win Saturday, I will dedicate an entire post to the glory of the Miami Hurricanes and you will all read it. If we lose...well then I'll have to come up with something else to write about. 

Much love,

Ty

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